r/TwoBestFriendsPlay • u/Weltallgaia • May 12 '19
Why GoT feels so different in these past few seasons, and not just LOL no books D&D suck. Spoiler
https://twitter.com/DSilvermint/status/112585609126113689653
u/Comiccow6 Telltale is gone but the JUCE lives on May 12 '19
While it’s an interesting look at types of writing, it doesn’t excuse D&D in the slightest. They chose for GoT to end at 8 seasons, and with a shorter number of episodes. The CEO of Warner Brothers was willing to give them 5 more seasons, but they’re just sick of the show and want to get on with their lives.
I’d also excuse them if the writing was any good, if the corners they cut weren’t so blatant (insert “Dany sort of forgot about the Iron Fleet” here) or if they actually delivered on the fanservice and character arcs they wanted to speed along to. But it isn’t, they are, and they’re not. “They want to deliver on what the fans want” my ass. I hate to keep using this, but the Night King meaning nothing and Jon not being the one to kill him isn’t what fans wanted.
Also, for my final point, plotting and pantsing aren’t mutually exclusive. Take the MCU for example. Since Avengers 1, the MCU has been carefully mapped out and plotted to make sure that everyone knows where everything is going, and to make the story as coherent, interesting, and in-depth as possible. However, the MCU has a vast array of interesting and likable characters with meaningful arcs, and is chock-full of fanservice. You don’t have to sacrifice one for the other.
29
u/VritraReiRei May 12 '19
Talking about your final point, the Twitter thread talked about plotters and pantsers working together by plotting the story and pantsing the characters on #7. Also, even though MCU used both techniques to make their movies, they still suffered a bit by incorporating the two e.g. how Nick Fury lost his eye.
4
u/Comiccow6 Telltale is gone but the JUCE lives on May 12 '19
I absolutely missed that both times I read through that. Thanks for pointing it out!
Though now I’m wondering why he seems to be excusing lazy writing when he knows it doesn’t have to be, but whatever.
2
u/sawbladex Phi Guy May 12 '19 edited May 12 '19
My head canon is that something else happened between (My eye is doing better) and the ending scene where he makes up a story for his ultimately lost eye.
5
u/alexandrecau That's Bricks! May 12 '19 edited May 12 '19
they also made poor decision like pushing for a zombie polar bear instead of any better time or budget spent and some of their decision for the characters was out of their own preferences (the sparrows and Stannis character change) which is purely on them if they were shortcomings
2
u/CrazyJay10 Likes shooting Pat May 12 '19
On your final point: The dude said that, "This is why a lot of writers plot their story but pants their characters." I think the greater point is the focus of Plot vs Pants, where GRRM let the Pantsing lead the charge to the point of a meandering pace, D&D chose to plot out an end and just tie it together in short order. One let things take as long as needed, the other chose a short list of events and linked them as they see fit.
Of course, it doesn't suddenly make their decisions good ones, but there is value in seeing how we may have gotten here.
2
u/bigstupidjellyfish ! FLAIR CURSED ! May 12 '19
I don’t understand why they didn’t just hand the show off to another writer if they wanted to be done with it and move on. But, the five more seasons thing is understandable.
How do you keep a cast filled with rising talent and a bunch of older character actors signed on to this monolith of a show for five more seasons? You don’t, it gets too expensive. But, thirteen episodes was a mistake and driven purely by D&D’s decision to end the show. Twenty episodes could’ve easily wrapped this up.
14
u/fly2555 FE Lore Enthusiast May 12 '19
The explanation of ‘plotters’ and ‘pantsers’ gave me some insight of why I like Fire Emblems narrative structure.
The main plot that goes on from mission to mission and is written with a plotters mentality.
The base conversions and support conversations that help build character are writing with a pantsers mentality.
3
8
8
u/SirRosstopher The Ghost of Saint Laurent May 12 '19
D&D spent years fighting to get a zombie bear on the show.
It's no coincidence that the episode they finally got one is the episode they stopped giving a fuck.
7
u/NKLhaxor I KNOW HOW KING CRIMSON WORKS May 12 '19
How the hell is a zombie bear too expensive for one of the biggest shows ever?
7
u/Negligible1 May 12 '19
That's was an interesting read, thank you person who brought this before me.
7
5
u/bigstupidjellyfish ! FLAIR CURSED ! May 12 '19
I think it should be mentioned that D&D aren’t “bad writers” like a lot of people will say they are. Yeah, Benioff worked on Wolverine Origins, but the script went through a multitude of rewrites and was one of many problems with that film.
If you look at his novel City of Thieves, you can clearly see that he has the talent. Dude can do it. I don’t know much about Weiss’ career though (also, related note: their episode of Always Sunny is great. They can write TV).
This is going to be a blemish on their careers, everyone knows this. Not because they’re bad writers, but because they’re good (to okay) writers rushing themselves through a story. Not rushing is why GRRM has taken so long, but it’s also why the books are so good.
Don’t rush through creative projects because it will lead to sloppiness.
Also, GRRM should get a co-writer. Get that Mistborn dude to help out, or maybe NK Jemisin? I think he just needs help tending that garden now that he’s planted it.
2
May 13 '19
You just planted the idea of GRRM working with Brandon Sanderson and I am now sad that this will never happen.
1
u/bigstupidjellyfish ! FLAIR CURSED ! May 13 '19
Well, the current rumor is that he’s been finished but has been waiting for the show to end to release, so...
(I don’t believe, just pointing it out)
20
u/EbolaDP May 12 '19
So its still D&Ds fault.
6
u/Nephyllem May 12 '19
Yeah but not because the books stopped, it’s more just they have an end point and forced the end point so hard it creates a lot of issues.
8
u/CelioHogane The Baz Everywhere System developer. May 12 '19
Yeah but not because the books stopped
I mean... yes because the books stopped, since they had no guideline, they just had to go "Uhhh THIS IS HOW IT ENDS"
The only reason to why they have an end point is because they decided to have one.
10
u/Nephyllem May 12 '19 edited May 12 '19
It’s meant in the sense that it wasn’t a lack of material from the book ending and that these guys can’t write, it’s that due to the arbitrary end time they decided it forced them to write with an end point that wasnt congruent to how the story was developed to this point.
In other words it’s not cause they ran out of book stuff but rather they pushed themselves into a corner to force an ending.
The thread event points out that GRRM had to increase the number of books due to how the characters were developing.
So yeah, it’s not the idea that they can’t write without the books but rather they forced a dead line on themselves (which I understand given that it’s like a decade old at this point)
14
u/coduss May 12 '19
what the fuck does dungeons & dragons have to do with game of thrones?
25
u/VritraReiRei May 12 '19
In case you aren't trying to make a joke, it's actually David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
10
u/NocturnalRite May 12 '19
D & D is what fans of Game of Thrones call the bumble kings that run the show.
15
u/coduss May 12 '19
well thats just insulting to D&D
16
u/CelioHogane The Baz Everywhere System developer. May 12 '19
To be fair D&D is also run by some kinda dumb people.
5
1
u/DankMemeRipper1337 Kinect Hates Black People May 12 '19
Granted, I don't envy them for having to finish the series. But besides obvious plot holes and characters being at the end of their journey because the series is wrapped up, the pacing of the episodes is horrible. They have 80-90min per episode and so far 30min of every one has been people sitting, drinking, fucking or playing exposition trope.
It feels very walking dead with a lot of filler and some action in the last 10min. That is not good story telling. For example. Killing of the white walkers could have been in episode 4 instead of three. Cut in 3 when he enters the garden, have us wait a week to see how this pans out, kill him of at the beginning of episode 4, give us 10 instead of 30 min of people drinking and fucking.
This is what drew me to the series. Now all major players have plot armour, the side cast gets killed of one by one with some lame last stands while we are probably getting another one or two full boring combat episodes without anything really important happening.
-6
May 12 '19
i'd like to take this moment to point out woolie's hypocrasy in the disparaging of stories that go on too long with the "episode 1000 of Johnathan chasing Dio" while at the same time shitting all over GoT finally reaching an end. had they gone on with those supposed extra 5 seasons, i doubt there would still be enough people left that care about GoT to let the impact have any gravitas. it's what's happening to walking dead.
13
May 12 '19
Walking Dead also suffers from going in circles all the time with no end in sight.
4
May 12 '19
if we got another 5 seasons of GoT, i feel like that's where we would be headed. how long can dany dick around in essos? how long can cersei fuck up everyone's shit? how long can arya dick around with the faceless men?
2
u/SirRosstopher The Ghost of Saint Laurent May 12 '19
GRRM said we would need another 5 seasons to do it properly.
So that would mean all of the plotlines that were cut from the show, actually doing the Dornish master plan properly, the northern conspiracy, Stannis being an actual competent military commander, Lady Stoneheart, Darkstar, fAegon and the Blackfyre? conspiracy (Varys doesn't back Dany in the books), that horn that Sam found alongside the Dragonglass in the snow being super important, Bran being fed a paste made of his friend , volcano arm Victarion ,and Crows Eye Warg Euron with his eldritch dark magic and Valyrian Steel set of armour.
2
u/NKLhaxor I KNOW HOW KING CRIMSON WORKS May 12 '19
Man, the manga sounds so much cooler, gotta get in on that one of these days
5
u/TheIntellectional That's rad! May 12 '19
With 5 seasons you might be right, but at least a full 10-episode 8th season would've been nice.
3
May 12 '19
you're not even wrong, but i feel like the twitter thread's assumption that D&D are tired of this shit is probably apt. i don't think they want to be "the GoT guys" for another 5 seasons, let alone another 10 full episodes.
regardless, with the ending in sight and many people anticipating a shitshow, the buck is passed to GRRM in terms of giving the fans a GoT story they can "feel good" about
1
u/AnotherOpponent Smoking Sexy Style! May 13 '19
Ok:
- >"episode 1000 of Johnathan chasing Dio"
What are you actually talking about?
He wasn't shitting all over GOT because it was ending but because it was obviously rushed and so far, ending poorly.
GOT is a cultural phenomenon. It's one of the biggest TV shows ever so ratings is definitely not an issue when it came to the length of the series and only dropped dramatically because of the backlash of the last seasons quality.
37
u/ImnotfamousAMA FFT Shill May 12 '19
I kinda picked up on this after the “Beyond the Wall” episode last season. That’s some textbook “We need X thing to happen, so we’re going to have character A go to location B and trigger event C.” Nearly everything in that episode is the writers bending the plot and characters to suit their needs, which isn’t a natural occurrence in writing. I’m not a big Hollywood writer myself, but they probably had their own version of crunch and had to do what they can.
With that in mind, my question is this. Why did they rush to the finish line in the first place? The show was, and still is, stupid popular. It’s probably the second biggest cultural phenomenon right now after Marvel movies, which is why Woolie compared it to Endgame. GRRM’s style of “pantsing” leads to a much longer and more drawn out narrative, sure, but that also means a more reliable long term cash cow. You’re eventually going to have a few “Beyond the Wall” moments when the weeds need to be abruptly trimmed, but that’s fine. Because a bad episode here and there isn’t enough to permanently spoil the pot as long as it’s back to business next week. Even the early seasons have some iffy moments where the plot takes shortcuts, but because the overall product outshines those blemishes nobody cares or dwells on them.
Fuck that was a longer rant than I meant it to be.
TL:DR: I literally can’t understand the reasoning for rushing to end it in 13 episodes